In 2006, Shannon Pittman from the University of Missouri-Columbia travelled to the Everglades National Park and implanted a dozen pythons with radio transmitters to track their movements. As part of that study, she put six of the snakes in sealed plastic containers, and drove them to locations 21 to 36 kilometres away before releasing them.

Pittman expected the snakes to randomly wander about their new environment. That is not what happened.

Instead, the pythons slithered home.

All of the them started moving towards the places where Pittman had originally captured them. Their accuracy was incredible. They stayed within 22 degrees of the right homeward bearing, and within 3 to 10 months, five of them had ended up within five kilometres of their original position.

This map shows their movements. Each colour represents a different snake. They were captured at the circles, taken to the triangles, and ended up at the diamonds. They all did spectacularly well. Even the blue snake seems to have headed in mostly the right direction before veering off for whatever reason.

Credit: Pittman et al, 2014.

Homing pythons!

HOMING PYTHONS!

Many animals, from pigeons to salmon to spiny lobsters, have incredible navigational skills, but this is the first time that any snake has demonstrated a similar acumen. They must have some sort of compass sense because they kept the right bearing, and they must have an internal map because they knew when they had reached the right destination.

For a compass, they could be picking up on the position of the sun or stars, the smell of home, or changes in the Earth’s magnetic field. As for the map, the snakes were always transported in sealed containers so they couldn’t memorise cues about their journeys as some animals do. They must be using some cues in their environment to work out their position but, again, we have no idea what those cues might be. (I would personally love it if they turned out to have a magnetic sense because I’ve written aboutsuchsensesextensively—but really, who knows?)

Pittman suspects that this navigational prowess may have contributed to the Burmese python’s skill as an invader, allowing them to explore new terrain in confidence and expand their range more quickly. The discovery may also help scientists to better predict and control the snakes’ movements.

There are 3 Comments. Add Yours.

Why don’t this Hansel & Gretel show slither all the way back to Burma then? Were they born here in Florida?
…

I know, I know, there are oceans on their way in any case..

Preston Garrison
March 20, 2014

I was hoping to be told that at least one snake boarded a plane for Burma, got there and made a movie about it.

Johnnie Howze
March 23, 2014

The word “Pet” tradionally has meant something that’s trainable like fetch, roll over and so forth and can show affection. A snake can’t do any of these things. So with this in mind, why would anyone in their right mind have a poisonous snake or one of the behemoths as a PET?

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Ed Yong is an award-winning British science writer. His work has appeared in Nature, the BBC, New Scientist, Wired, the Guardian, the Times, and more. Not Exactly Rocket Science is his hub for talking about the awe-inspiring, beautiful and quirky world of science to as many people as possible, regardless of their background.

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